The Revision

It has been a hot minute since I have blogged. I neglected it, kept it in the back of my mind. I always wanted to be a "blogger," having followed and kept up with certain people on the internet for nearly 8 years, I always thought it was enticing and so interesting to make real connections with people you would never be able to meet in your real life.

Jill Firns from SOASM

It has only been recently since my coworker Jill, who has started a fabulous blog (Click here to visit Stilettos on a Sunday Morning!) and has been talking about it non-stop. She has been bloggin' her  little fingers off about fashion, networking, and events in the st. louis area that she has attended, and I am expecting some posts about her and her adventure to becoming a dj. Jill and I both work at Maurices (a specialty fashion retailer) together. After a couple of days of her talking about her blog (weeks, probably) I finally surrendered to the idea that I must update my really, I mean REALLY, out of date blog.







I was really surprised when I came to it to review my stats. Not only had people actually been reading my old blog, but I had over 12 THOUSAND views. Now to some people, that may seem like nothing at all. But when I hadn't viewed my little podunk blog in 2-ish years, and before that I was excited that I would get even 100 views on a blog.

Now, there had been some little links on tumblr and other derby blogs that linked, and really random google searches that lead people to here. I ended up having people comment on my blog, yet mostly responding to the Beyonslay inspiration post, and others tracking from when my review from the MADE: I want to be a roller girl post actually got into the skaters of the episode. Overall though, I don't think I am qualified enough to really expand this as a derby only blog.

my first derby family, the Springfield Roller Girls

Despite roller derby being the like, #1 thing in my life other than my fiance and my baby girl olive, what roller derby has REALLY taught me is that I need to work on myself outside of just that. Finally realizing that has made a change.

The biggest change has been the realization that I was graduating college, had NO IDEA what I wanted to do, or who I wanted to be. I knew I was moving back home, which was exciting, but it made me nauseous realizing that I had no plans other than that.


The biggest motivation for me was knowing that I was leaving my comfort zone and my support system of the Springfield Roller Girls and going to dive right in to the swoony, dreamy, and D1 ranked Arch Rival Roller Girls. The journey so far has been amazing, dreamy, aggravating, hard, sweaty, and successful. I have made so many friends, I get to play on a daily basis with some of my derby idols from ARRG and the Gatekeepers! But it was super hard and stressful for a fat, not really athletic, severely anxiety prone and negative person to jump into!

What I'm trying to get at is the last semester of college I decided I had to change myself to become a better version of myself if I wanted to be somewhat happy when I moved back home. On top of trying to graduate and having a quarter life crisis (which I will most likely blog about) I decided to attempt to lose weight.

A photo of not even me at my heaviest (around 283) to me at about 240.

I had started my journey tiptoeing around 300 lbs in January of 2013.
As of right now, I am about 80-85 lbs (on a good day ;)) down from that. It has been a super weird, emotional journey, but I think not keeping complete track of it (by blogging) has lead me to take massive breaks and get unmotivated. While this will not be a weight loss blog, a lot of my life revolves around trying to get healthy and thus will be journaled about.

Jake and Olive settling in to the new place

What also has changed for me is that me and my tiny little family of Jake and Olive have just moved from the safest little almost retirement like community of Illinois, to literally living on South Grand in St. Louis. The move has been AMAZING (and expensive) and learning and living in the city and getting to explore it is going to be a major part of my life, especially when mother nature decides to stop snowing!





And last but not least, I'm still 22 years old. I still haven't found out what I want to do with my life, or what kind of person I want or even need to be. Trial and error has been something I have come really familiar with in my life. But with all the supportive and positive people I have come to love in St. Louis, I'm not at all too worried and am just enjoying coasting and learning along the way.

Hope you join me along the way to trying to figure things out.


♥&☺ kayla